Splash Pages
by MaskedKitten
Summary: "At some point in our lives, we all wanted to be a superhero." Three kids and the six parents who shape their lives. Movie based.


**Disclaimer - **I don't own Kick Ass. This is all just for fun.

**Note - **This is my first Kick Ass story, and basically just an attempt to become familiar with the characters and world they inhabit. This focuses on the parents, and is the first in a two part fic. This is a stand alone story, but I'm writing a much longer post-movie story that will reference back to it. The first part takes place before the movie, the second part takes place after. This is entirely movie based.

Please read and review!

_**Part 1/2**_

* * *

Red oozes onto the sleeve of Alice Lizewski's sweater, and she retrieves a folded Spider-man napkin from the package sitting beside the cake on the kitchen table. As she absent mindedly wipes the excess icing away, she takes a moment to watch her husband keep her seven year old son occupied in the living room with action figures and party favors.

The cake in front of her is almost finished; all Spider-man needs is a web to hang on. She begins to squeeze the tube of red icing again, this time tuning out the laughter and shouts coming from the living room to concentrate solely on finishing her son's birthday cake. Once her mission is completed, she hurriedly places the plastic cover back over the cake and sets it atop the fridge, where Dave's eyes can't spot it.

She didn't buy eight individual candles, just one candle with the number eight on it. She sits down into one of the chairs and stares at it.

Her little boy is growing up so fast.

In her mind, she can see future birthdays laid out, each one different than this one: she can see birthday lists featuring action figures replaced by more video games, a cell phone and eventually, a car. She imagines his prom, his high school graduation, and his last summer home before he leaves for college in the span of a minute.

Another minute more, and she begins to imagine the career paths he might take.

"Mommy, Spider-man defeated the Green Goblin!"

Dave's pleased announcement startles her out of her bittersweet musings, and she smiles down at him as he triumphantly waves the Spider-man figure around in the air.

"That's great, Dave," she says warmly as she runs her fingers through his mop of curly brown hair and straightens his glasses on the bridge of his nose before they fall off.

They'd just had to replace his first pair when he'd been playing outside with his friend Todd at school and shattered the lenses. She isn't ready for him to lose another pair so soon. They manage to make do with what they have, but money can still get a little tight sometimes.

Dave, oblivious to anything other than the toy in his hand, continues to ramble on happily, "I wanna be a superhero just like Spider-man when I grow up! I'm going to fight bad guys like the Green Goblin, and save people!"

He says it so seriously, with so much passion in his voice, Alice's visions of the future dissolve in a flash of red and blue. Her smile widens and she pulls her son into her lap. She tells him he can be whatever he wants to be.

They have all the time in the world.

* * *

His wife's perfectly applied foundation has run down her cheeks. Her black mascara and eye liner are smeared, creating heavy rings of coal around her eyes. Her dark hair, so carefully curled and styled only three hours before, is in tangles around her face as she sleeps.

Frank D'Amico runs a hand over his face, putting extra pressure on the right side of his head, just above his eyebrow once his fingers reach it. His headache sure as hell isn't going away anytime soon.

He'd poured himself a glass of whiskey as soon as Angela fell asleep, and he takes it with him into his office and leans up against the desk, trying to keep his eyes on anything but the bloodstained floor. He settles for a view of the surrounding city buildings.

Joe approaches from behind him and Frank doesn't even hear him until he's only a foot away.

"I got Stu makin' sure everybody's back at their posts." Frank turns his head watches as Joe inspects the door. The hinges are busted, the wood is splintered. "Shit, sorry about the door, Frankie. But you know how they're gonna react when they hear a gunshot inside the house."

Frank takes a long drink from his glass and lets the liquid burn down his throat until he can restrain the rage boiling inside of him.

"My eight year old son's fuckin' blood is on the carpet right here in front of my desk, and you think I give a fuck about the door?"

Joe holds his hands up in the air. "No, Frankie, of course not, but you heard the doctor. He said Chris'll be fine, that the bullet just grazed his side. He knows what he's talkin' about. You don't have to worry."

"Goddamnit, Joe, he's my son. I'll always worry."

Frank finishes off the rest of his whiskey, and without saying another word to Joe, goes to check on Chris. He finds him curled up in bed on his right side, buried under the covers. With the amount of drugs in his system, he'll likely sleep through the night, but Frank clears five action figures and at least three dozen comic books off a chair in one corner of the room, sets it next to the bed, and settles into it.

He's promised Angela that this won't happen again - that he won't leave a gun out on his desk where a curious child can find it and pick it up. He'll make sure his office door's closed, and locked when he's not inside. He'll try harder to keep his business from Chris, because that's what Angela wants. He loves her and wants to keep her happy, even he doesn't agree. Even if he thinks this wouldn't have happened if Chris had known about the gun, how to use it, and why Frank needs it.

The pile of Spider-man comics (his son's been on a Spider-man kick lately…next month it could be Batman) he moved to the floor are mocking him with their bright colors and heroic nonsense.

He can't teach his kid about something useful, but he's reading all of this superhero fantasy bullshit. Truth, Justice and the fucking American Way. He knows about the American Way: knows how to play the system from the inside, how to make money, how to gain people's respect.

He knows that if a few dumb fucks or self righteous cocksuckers have to pay the price, no one else will care if you pay them enough. Or threaten them enough.

He wants his son to be successful. Smart. Superhero pussies running around in tights aren't either of those things. If Spider-man actually existed, Frank D'Amico would've already taken the little fucker out.

One day, hopefully, Chris will understand, will see how the real world works. And realize that there's no place in it for heroes.

* * *

Damon Macready knows how to push his body to the edge and over it, building it up even as it feels like he's tearing it down. He knows the way a gun sits in his hand, the weight of cold metal familiar and comforting. He knows vengeance, how it can keep a person going in even the worst of circumstances. How it can give a man purpose.

Those are all important things, and he knows them. The one important thing that Damon Macready doesn't know yet is how to be a father.

He's crouched down in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a hand gun laying at his feet. He's trying and failing to coax his six year old daughter from where she's hiding: under a worn wooden table in the back left hand corner of the building.

"Mindy, Sugar, it's time to come out of there now." He's talking in what he hopes is a gentle enough voice, but she doesn't budge. She just stares at him with wide blue eyes (Amanda's eyes… She looks so much like Amanda, and Amanda is the reason for all of this, so he has to get her over this fear. ) as she clutches her stuffed dog to her chest.

He remembers Marcus informing him that the dog is her favorite. Damon hasn't unpacked the others - they're still sitting in a bag in the small apartment they're currently living in - but he'd gotten the dog out for her right away. She carries it with her everywhere and only lets go of it when she sleeps.

"I've taken the bullets out," he assures her, lifting the gun to show her. Her eyes follow his movements. "There won't be any bang, Babydoll."

She's been with him for a little over two days, and in that time she's watched him fire a gun twelve times. The sound of one going off still scares her.

He's getting concerned.

"Why don't you just take a look at it?" He slowly slides the gun towards her. "You can get used to how it feels and not have to worry about hearing the noise again right now, okay, Mindy? Can you try it for Daddy?"

Mindy is gazing down at the gun, tears drying on her face, but he sees her grip loosen on her stuffed animal. One small hand reaches for the weapon. Damon holds his breath, expecting her to pull away before she touches it, but her fingers enclose around the handle and she lifts it off the ground. Her hand trembles, but she doesn't drop it - instead, she lets go of her stuffed animal completely to hold the gun in both hands.

"That's it, Babydoll," he encourages.

She crawls out from underneath the table then, leaving her stuffed animal behind. Her natural curiosity and eagerness to make her daddy proud has taken over. She studies the gun. Her hands have stopped shaking, and she begins to copy his earlier stance - turning the gun so that it's pointing in the direction of the makeshift target he'd set up across the room. She looks at him, and he feels a smile split his face.

She smiles back instantly.

It's such a relief to see her smile, Damon decides they've accomplished enough for the day. After he packs everything up and drops it off at their place, he takes Mindy to get ice cream. She chooses a root beer float and he orders a chocolate milkshake for himself.

It's only after they finish that a few comic books on a nearby magazine rack catch Mindy's eye. She grabs two of them off the shelf and runs back to him. "Can I get one, Daddy? Can I? Please?"

"Of course you can, Child."

He's too happy about her progress today to deny her anything.

He'd had a comic collection once. Amanda used to tease him about it, then buy him issues and leave them on the kitchen table for him to read on nights he got home from work late. Marcus convinced her to sell them to pay some of the bills after he was sent to prison. The money hadn't been enough.

After a few minutes of flipping through the comics, Mindy chooses an issue of the Justice League over Spider-man. She likes the brightly colored costumes the heroes wear and says it would be "cool" to be part of a superhero team.

Only a short few years later, in a different apartment in New York City, there will be several stacks of comics in Mindy's bedroom in place of stuffed animals.

And Damon will begin a comic of his own.


End file.
